Burning Man Doodles Collage

'Nother Collage.

CHUG!
Collage of doodles of Burning Man, and other doodles

Japanese Garden watercolor painting

A little painting I made on a visit wth my folks to the Portland (Oregon) Japanese Garden.
It may be hard to tell from this angle that it's a Japanese garden.  Placed in a large forest, it was more wild than tame, but the obligatory standing stones gave the feel of the traditional Japanese garden, as well as the effort to make nature look somehow more natural.

My cartooning activities at Burning Man

I have drawn cartoons at every Burning Man I've attended, for nine consecutive years, and will again this year, for my tenth.  Whenever I can, I'll scrawl my characters on a graffiti wall or "snipe" someone with a caricature from across the room, to gift to them.

In 2004, I brought a portable easel and made caricatures of all my camp-mates, and guests that were in our camp at the time.  My first attempt at a playa gift, the drawings were on paper, not ideal for the rugged camp living.  Now I do them on small cards which are a bit more durable and portable.

In 2005, I spearheaded the creation of an artful cover for our dome.  It was intended to be a brain pattern portrayed in mazy runes painted in black on an off-white drop cloth.

In 2006, I submitted my original ink drawings to an art project which was using the drawings of many artists in a wall-sized collage in the Man Pavillion, underneath the Man itself.  Also, I drew a self-portrait in a scrapbook left on a craft table in the Center Camp. 

In 2007, my camp-mates and I launched Cartoon Commune, and I held my first Cartooning workshop with a dozen attendees.  The workshop is now on its seventh year running.

In 2008, I finger-painted a large caricature of "W,"on a board with a hole for the mouth.  This was a carnival game, where participants had to throw dildos into bush's mouth.  This was for a neighbor camp's adult carnival.

In 2009, I created a shrine, the Shrine of the Cartoon Playa, a repurposed medicine cabinet with cartoon scenes of the playa.  Also that year, I claimed a two-dimensional art kiosk in the Center Camp Cafe, and made an impromptu artwork incorporating cartoons, collage and runes.

In 2010, I pre-registered for the Center Camp Cafe art gallery and hung my abstract/cartoon/visionary paintings.  And I drew caricatures as a rally point in the Kinetic Sculptures Race and Scavenger Hunt, drawing quick-sketch group portraits (five minutes or less) of the participants and their awesome muscle-powered art vehicles as a souvenir for them.

In 2011, I tried to maintain the habit of drawing caricatures as gifts for people, whenever I was waiting in line for something, like ice or coffee.  It's a great ice-breaker, and takes little effort.  In previous years, I had drawn them for people here and there, but this year I drew and gifted more than usual, maybe because I was often standing in line for crepes and artisanal coffee.

In 2012, I drew caricatures of staff and patrons at the French Quarter's Cafe Fin du Monde, and I painted an exit sign on an art car.  I also brought out my cartoony palm frond masks to decorate our camp.


This year, I am bringing out a brand new shrine decorated with cartoon scenes of my favorite camps, artworks, and experiences from my nine years of attending Burning Man.  I am also hanging my vision watercolor paintings in the center camp.  In addition to the masks I brought last year, I'm bringing a painting I made of Stimpy from an original drawing by Vincent Waller, one of the main artists who produced Ren and Stimpy, who had visited Cartoon Commune in 2007.  Finally, I'm involved in Matt Melnicki's Get Lit(erary) Project, which aims to expand the medium of the written word at Burning Man.  I submitted my recent cartoon artwork to appear as part of self-published 'zines, which will reside in a pair of artful book cabinets on the playa. 

How to Remember Dreams

How to Remember Dreams:

The best way is to keep paper and pencil, or a recording device by the bed so that when you wake up in the night you can record a quick impression of what you were dreaming about.
Dream-journaling can be fun and rewarding, and I have filled pages with long descriptions of dreams.  Other times, it seems a written description can't capture the feelings and utterly outlandish happenings in the dreamworld. 

Not wanting to interrupt my sleep for long writing sessions, I found a way to incorporate mnemonic devices into my dream-recalling strategy.  I would just remember one element of part of a dream and repeat it over and over to myself.  Later, on waking up again with a new dream in my mind, I will select an element from that and add it to the first one which I can usually still recall.  In this way, I build a list of smaller elements, each of which triggers the memory of the dream that contained it.

When a dream is just beyond recall, I find the best way to remember it is to try to go into the feeling of emotion that was associated with the dream.  If I can feel that feeling from the dream again, sometimes I can remember the whole dream.

Telling dreams to another person seems to be a great way to purge the feelings of dreams, and in effect, release them.  Sometimes an image from a dream will haunt me for years, but telling another person about it seems to defuse the energy of it.

Often we dream about something that then happens in waking life.  Or we meet someone in a dream whom we then meet in waking life.  Could the ability to remember dreams be a benefit in terms of being prepared for what might come?

Burning Man 2008 mushroom trip - part 3

continued from Part 2 ...

Part 1 here.

I found I had energy to stand, and the music's rhythm inspired me to jump out of the chair and dance frenetically.

The music playing was reggae, one of my favorite genres.  I danced as I like to do, letting the rhythm move me.  At some point, a song came on with lyrics that sounded to me like, "I wonder why Babylon be fighting marijuana?"  This spoke deeply to my own bitterness and anger at the prohibition of cannabis, and I yelled out, "Yeah! What the fuck, right?" looking to the other people dancing, who acknowledged me with silent nods.  I danced until I got tired, then I went back to the bar where I'd originally been offered the saki.  This time, I accepted a shot of saki and it went down really smooth.

The dust was still thick, and I was thinking of moving on from this camp, so I asked those camping there to help orientate me.  I asked where the Man was in relation to us, and they pointed up the adjacent road, not the way I was expecting.  I was incredulous, at how much I'd been turned around.  Putting my gear on, I said goodbye, and headed up the spoke towards the Man.  I figured I'd have better luck walking along the Esplanade, keeping the large theme camps to my right. 

It was somewhat better tracking by the large landmarks and signs.  I was still looking for the Entheon art galleries. Just as I thought I must be getting pretty close, I saw a sign that said "Do not ask us where Entheon Village is."  This was a sure sign that I was near, but very frustrating, since of course I had been thinking of asking for directions.  I figured that many a lost psychonaut had bothered them, to lead them to erect the sign.

I ducked into a dome to wipe my glasses, and a woman inside was chanting at a small shrine on one side.  She was chanting "Nam myoho renge kyo," which I learned is a phrase in Japanese that is supposed to bring one to a state of bliss, by repeating it.  I huddled in there, avoiding the dust, just glad for the shelter, and a place to sit.  For awhile I went unnoticed by the lady, but after awhile she invited me to chant with her.  I was a bit weirded out, but I figured what the hell, it's Burning Man, so I chanted with her for awhile with little enthusiasm.  Soon after, she invited me to kneel with her at the shrine to continue chanting.  I told her I was "good" where I was, huddling by the door, watching the waves of dust sweep by.  I was dubious that just chanting a phrase, let alone that one particular phrase, was going to bring me happiness, and anyway I was already happy.

Soon I left that shelter and walked on, coming to another dome, another group having a party.  I was talking to a girl and the subject of the weather naturally came up, the blinding and stifling whiteness outside. I told her about how I'd invoked the windstorm, given it power, and she got a very serious look on her face, as though taking my power over the weather seriously.  She gravely told me, "I hope you got what you wanted from the storm."  I had to acknowledge that in fact, I did get what I wanted.  From my first year, I always liked walking through a dust storm, and I have come to associate that feeling with this magical welcoming playa.  But by now, I had gotten my fill, and really just wanted the dust to go away.  Apparently my power did not extend to stopping the storm quickly.

Moving on, I next alighted upon a camp with a large dome and a sign reading, "Black Rock Diner".  It seemed open, so I went in.  Inside was a typical camp dining area with camp chairs and pillows arranged in a semi-circle around a long buffet table.  It turned out, they were not open per se, but were having their camp meal.  This camp, at scheduled times, served grilled cheese to all comers.  They welcomed me regardless, inviting me to help myself to their leftovers, since they were mostly done eating.  I was famished, and everything was delicious.  I managed to finish off a large bowl of pasta with grated cheese that they were just going to throw out.  In the meantime, I had fallen into a deep conversation with one of the main organizers of the camp and his girlfriend.  It was one of those discussions that flows naturally, yet changes everything.  I think my admission to being on mushrooms triggered it, but it ended up covering many things: zen buddhism, yin and yang, virtual reality and the matrix.  At some point, he asked me what I'm "all about," and I responded in the Burning Man spirit by saying I wanted to raidate joy and love, throw myself into every experience.  He cautioned me that such a happy-go-lucky approach to life will unconsciously create its opposite, like the yin-yang.  I couldn't quite grok at the time how my happiness could create misery, but his warning opened up a little window of awareness, such that I did see it later.  My exuberance could, and often did become a drag on others, as well as myself.

I left there with kind of a floating feeling, walking out into the pre-sunset "golden hour," and noticed the wind and dust had died down. I could once again see the sky and far down the streets.  People were in their camps preparing, and lots of people were moving up the street towards the man, set to burn in just a few hours.  I was drained from my day's trip: all the walking, the visions, the discussions, the dust.  I had burned myself out, and wanted nothing more than to crash in my dome.  I hate to miss the frenzy of the man burn, but I hate even more to ignore my body's messages that I need rest.  I had never found my goal, the Entheon Village art galleries, but at that point I didn't care, since I had seen more than my share of psychedelic art within the confines of my mind, art which had been animated and interactive to boot! 

Back at my dome, I quickly fell asleep, and woke up hours later, ready to join the aftermath of the Man burn, and see what the night had to offer.

Vision Sketch: Gnomes in Sentient Tree Village

Just a little image that appeared to me on the edge of dreaming.

Sketches of some of my favorite inspirational figures.

Some of the people I draw inspiration from.  These sketches will be added to a collage on my shrine for Burning Man.

Ten Saints: portraits in pencil from photos
top row from left: Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
middle row from left: Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Alan Watts
bottom row from left: the Dalai Lama, Dr. Madan Kataria, Mahatma Ghandi, Albert Einstein

Sketchbook Page 21: Bird, Bunny, Plants

These sketches I created while on the plane back home from having seen some of Portland, based on some photos I took at McMenamins Edgefield, a hotel/ resort/ farm/ ranch.  The photos follow.

Sketch of bird, bunny, plants. pencil

 

Bird

 

Bunny

 

Bunny

Artichoke Plant

Sketchbook Page 20: Laguna Main Beach Summer Crowd Scene

The Summer months mean huge crowds of tourists and So Cal locals to Laguna's Main Beach, with its mild weather, lush green hills and placid water.  A bit of a study for a painting I am thinking of making of the colorful crowds and umbrellas on the scenic beach with its trademark lifeguard tower.

Laguna Main Beach Summer Crowd
July 7, 2013
Pencil